Point taken – but even an average IWM organised Duxford show has a range of historic aircraft that would have been unimaginable 25 years ago – enjoy and never take them for granted.
As for Waddington, what is the point of having a flying display commencing when most of the audience are still in their cars? I thought last years flying display was typically badly organised – “magnificent 7 hour air display” or something similar the website said. Well, actually about a 5 hour show padded out, with lots of gaps in the programme and empty sky between acts. It should be compulsory for display organisers to attend Flying Legends to see how well run a display can be.

BA crews referred to the Trident as the “gripper” due to its reluctance to leave the ground. A VTOL Trident, surely a contradiction!
For a VTOL transport, try the Dornier Do 31

On a 3 degree glideslope, descent is approx 300 ft per nautical mile. So if Walsall is at (say) 10 nm from touchdown on 15 , aircraft will be roughly at 3000ft agl, if following the notional glideslope. If you have a look at http://www.ais.org.uk (you need to register, but it is free) and look at Aerodrome Data in the UK AIP you will see minimum altitude in the Radar Vectoring Area around Walsall is 2500ft, becoming 2000ft shortly afterwards, so traffic could be slightly lower if at the minimum vectoring altitude. As to speed, depends on type and ATC speed requirements – jets would unlikely to be faster than their minimum clean speed (about 210 kts), but almost certainly reducing speed as they turn for the ILS.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/1991/910211-0.htm for the Interflug A310.

The full story at http://www.caa.co.uk/publications/publicationdetails.asp?id=751

First/Second Officer mean exactly whatever the employing airline want it to mean. In my company, First & Second Officers are essentially the same (same training, qualification, flying etc), the thing that separates them is experience (1500 hrs) and more importantly, salary (less for S/O – no surprises there!)
In the Cathay Cargo case, a S/O would probably be acting as a Cruise Pilot on a B747-400. The normal two crew is augmented by a third pilot to achieve a greater allowed Flying Duty Period. The job would probably involve sitting in either flight deck seat for long peroids in the cruise while other crew take rest, but not being allowed to do take off or landings until fully qualified as a First Officer (but that depends entirely on an airline’s policy, its not a legal thing)